Sen. Warren: Hey, let’s help students refinance their loans by raising taxes on the wealthy!

posted at 6:41 pm on May 7, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

The Democrats’ push to hike the national minimum wage is merely the crown jewel in the so-called “fair shot” agenda that they hope will erase ObamaCare from voters’ minds by the time they hit the ballot box this November; the next action item on their intellectually (not to mention fiscally) bankrupt list is a similarly redistributive and equally lame pander to the young people who have lately been electorally shuffling away from them. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, it’s your cue:

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is poised to introduce a bill which, in part, would allow people holding student loans financed at rates higher than today’s interest rate to refinance those loans, similar to the way one refinances a home mortgage or car loan.

“When interest rates drop, people can refinance their home, they can refinance their business debt. It’s regarded as a smart move for any consumer or business. But student borrowers are prohibited from doing that under most programs,” Warren told MassLive.com. “This bill says we’re going to change that and let them refinance that down to current low rates.” …

“This is $66 billion on just the loans issued during that period. That is insane,” Warren said. “This (bill) brings that down. Instead of taxing students who can’t afford to pay for college up front, it says we are investing in those students.”

It’s funny she would refer to the $66 billion in interest that the federal government, i.e. taxpayers stand to earn on the money they lent to students between 2007 and 2012 as a “tax,” because that brings us to how Warren proposes to pay for this generous “refinancing” opportunity. Surprise, surprise:

But since cutting something that has generated such a huge profit over just five years will place a hole in the already-stretched federal budget, Warren is proposing a solution, albeit one that is bound to be viewed as being as political as it is practical. …

Enacting the Buffett Rule, which Republicans in the Senate voted to kill in 2012 calling it a “political stunt,” would increase the income tax rate of Americans earning more than $1 million annually. The money generated through that move, according to Warren, would make the difference and send a message about the nation’s “values.”

“The act covers the full budgetary cost of refinancing by implementing the Buffett Rule. Basically, the way I see it, there are billions of dollars here that flow out of the U.S. Treasury to a tax loophole, that are available to millionaires and billionaires. This bill says to use that money to reduce the interest rate on student loans,” Warren said. “So it’s a pretty direct choice – should America be investing billions of dollars in tax loopholes for billionaires or investing that money to help young people who are trying to get an education? I think spending should be consistent with our values.”

Well. That certainly would send a message about the nation’s “values,” but you know what could really help young people out with “money they can use to build an economic future and to strengthen the economy”? How about, robust economy in which they can get good, well-paying, career-advancing jobs — which is not accomplished by enacting stupid show taxes on the wealthy, further convoluting our tax code, and placing more burdens on investors and job creators.

The real point of this exercise, of course, is to point out yet another way in which Republicans are ostensibly protecting their rich robber-baron buddies at the expense of our country’s poor, struggling future leaders, but the reality is that the federal government created this indeed tremendously problematic $1 trillion+ student loan bubble in the first place by offering indiscriminately available and inexpensive loans to anyone and everyone who might want them.

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Hey, maybe they could all just claim minority status as she did, and snag some of those sweet minority only scholarships and take advantage of affirmative action like Fauxcohontas did.

When Liawatha checks the box that has her volunteer to pay taxes at a higher rate, then she can come to hit on the rest of us.

I wish someone would just tell her that a distant, very white relative being spat upon by Cherokees during the Trail of Tears is insufficient as a mode of DNA transfer that would allow her to claim “native American” status.

Or, instead of raising taxes they could just market the fact that students can take advantage of the income based repayment programs that also include loan forgiveness if its not paid off by a certain time… This was signed into law in 2007, no need to keep making stupid laws Sen Warren…

Part of the problem is that students takes these loans for expenses other than only tuition and books, i.e. LIVING EXPENSES, rather than getting a job, or JOBS, as in plural.

I worked my way through college with one student loan, for tuition and books for only one semester, campus work study, and 4 years working fast food. Yes it was difficult, but it helped build character and I didn’t grow up to think the world owed me a damn thing.

No one is forcing these students to take on this debt. They do it willingly and know the terms when they sign the contract (no re-financing).

Enacting the Buffett Rule, which Republicans in the Senate voted to kill in 2012 calling it a “political stunt,” would increase the income tax rate of Americans earning more than $1 million annually. The money generated through that move, according to Warren, would make the difference and send a message about the nation’s “values.”

“The act covers the full budgetary cost of refinancing by implementing the Buffett Rule. Basically, the way I see it, there are billions of dollars here that flow out of the U.S. Treasury to a tax loophole, that are available to millionaires and billionaires. This bill says to use that money to reduce the interest rate on student loans,” Warren said. “So it’s a pretty direct choice – should America be investing billions of dollars in tax loopholes for billionaires or investing that money to help young people who are trying to get an education? I think spending should be consistent with our values.”

Sen. Warren: Hey, let’s help students refinance their loans by raising taxes on the wealthy!

The ad writes itself. Warren navigating the Charles River in a canoe. Warren coming ashore at Harvard and going into a Starbucks where students just got their monthly statements. Final scene a close up of Warren with a tear streaming down those high cheekbones.

And for you stupid Millenials who have no sense of past cultural trends. This is for you.

* A co-worker sent out an e-mail that talked about a quid-pro-quo proposition by joking that “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”. The twenty-thirty something who was the recipient thought he was insane.

All the left can do is look for more $$ to spend on sumpin’, and it’s always OURS !!
Well, Tootsawatha, even taxing the rich 100% couldn’t fund any of your sweet plans, let alone the monstrosity that you’ve already created .. not even for a day or two.
Stuff a sock in it, ‘girlfriend’ !!!

Put price controls on colleges to force them to stop gouging. The pricing anarchy is in need of some common sense regulation. Eggheads advocate for ideas like this, so I’m sure they won’t object.

Also add a Cadillac tax on every employee that earns more than $100k. Again, academics love this kind of thing, so it should be no problem.

My favorite though would be to appropriate any endowment surplus over $1M and use it for studen debt relief and scholarships. The schools don’t need that money – it’s just sitting there. Put it to work for the students!

How MA could possibly pick this deranged, infantile megalomaniac over adult Scott Brown?! If there were aliens and they saw such a selection they’d have to conclude conclusively there’s no intelligent life here.

If Ms. Warren asked my advice, I would tell her not to advocate this plan. we all know what will happen, they will run out of money and people who do not intend to pay back their loans will still not pay back their loans. then she will have to go back to the intended audience and explain why they are still in debt and that her plan failed. After all she wouldn’t want to be known as an “indian giver”.

Here’s an absurd idea. I know that you’ll think that I’ve been listening to far too many of Obama’s speeches. Nevertheless, here it is: work. Oh, I’ll probably get banned for using a four-letter word. I’ll risk it and say again “work”! Let them do what so many have done before them.

Take a reduced course load, a year longer for the degree, and work part-time. Or, work for a few years, save some money, and in the meantime explore how they can get the best bang for their buck. High-priced educational institutions are not always the best choice. Ask their parents if they’re able and willing to do a matching funds deal. However it’s managed it has many pluses. The employers I’ve known like the applicants with job experience and education.

I don’t see what good refinancing is going to do given the current bubble. A few percentage points on interest if someone is $70,000 in debt for a useless degree and doesn’t have a job is meaningless.

The government should have never been in the loan business in the first place.

Also, regardless of who was issuing the loans, they should be dischargeable through bankruptcy. Then the borrower takes a hit and the lender takes a hit, and hopefully learns not to issue bad loans in the future.

This government deals with the public in bad faith. They encourage, in fact insist, that institutions make loans, and then the government changes the rules after the fact. The government never gets blamed for the mistakes it makes, but the institutions get blamed for being forced to go along with the government.

Take a reduced course load, a year longer for the degree, and work part-time. Or, work for a few years, save some money, and in the meantime explore how they can get the best bang for their buck. High-priced educational institutions are not always the best choice. Ask their parents if they’re able and willing to do a matching funds deal. However it’s managed it has many pluses. The employers I’ve known like the applicants with job experience and education.

VALman on May 7, 2014 at 7:20 PM

Or they could go the full Wendy Davis and marry a rich man, abandon their family, and go to college debt free. But don’t forget to craft a fictional biography if you do that.

I’m already buckled up and gritting my teeth ahead of the ‘You’re all sexists!’ hysteria coming our way in the ’16 campaign and hearing the LEFT chant ‘war on women’ endlessly. Any chance of levity is looking pretty slim right now.

– Have colleges/universities focus on their strengths rather than trying to be all things to all students

– End remedial classes by not admitting students who are not prepared for college level work

College tuition costs sky-rocketed when the federal government began guaranteeing student loans. This gave colleges the luxury of not having to reduce their cost structures since students could just add the rapidly increasing tuition payments to their loans.

Rather than reducing the cost of student loans, colleges need to reduce the cost of tuition.

Senator Warren should be well aware of where expenses could easily be cut on college campuses based on her many years as an affirmative action Professor at Harvard University.

the way I see it, there are billions of dollars here that flow out of the U.S. Treasury to a tax loophole,

This is key to her thinking: it’s the GOVERNMENT’S money that the rich are claiming as their own. Tax money doesn’t “flow out of the treasury” in tax loopholes. Loopholes, exemptions, overpayment, call it what you will, but the money was earned by citizens or corporations as recompense for production, or as interest on money invested in production.
Investment. There’s a word Obama and the rest like to throw around, but what they really mean by “investment” is “redistribution”.

One has to admire the Democrat party for their skill at playing retail politics. While the ideologically pure (on web sites such as this) expect to win elections with “issues” and grand themes, the Democrats understand that the majority of the voters are for sale to the highest bidder. Low information voters respond to pocket book issues. A vague promise to save overleveraged under educated students money on their loan obligations is enough to drive up the vote of the recent grads. a key Democrat voting bloc.

If Republicans want to win they are going to have to choose one or two Democrat interest groups and start upping their bid at least rhetorically. Hopefully the ideologically pure will catch on and shut up long enough to win some elections.

Wanting someone else to pay for other people’s _____________(fill in your preferred pet debt here) things is so not new for a dem. We already pay for their cell phones, food, tax deductions, housing, and health insurance why not pay off their loans.